I've never been too much into laptops because I've always felt that they were inferior to desktop computers. But now that the technology is so big, laptops can be just as good and sometimes even better than a desktop computer. So now I have finally decided to get a laptop.

So here's what I'm wondering: I could buy a laptop and then load it with FreeBSD, but for the moment I'm not interested in doing that because I'm not a very experienced FreeBSD user so I know that I would have some hard time trying to configure wireless network with FreeBSD. That's why I want to go with either Windows (I know, I know, shame on me) or a mac laptop. I've never used mac before but I have heard great things about it. I would be mostly be using it for work (using Putty to login to other servers) and programming a little here an there. So I just would like to know if its really worth it for me to spend the extra money with Mac rather then buying a cheaper windows laptop?

I'm using Apples too since system 7 (no UNIX, just an OS and some 680x0 cpu). It's UNIX per definition, but nothing else more (I'm sorry for BSD people believing in this nonsense). You will get something GNU, something BSD (to some degree rather old) and something completely different at the surface. And you will experience true hell if you do something more technical under the surface and see what happens afterwards. But that's okay - Apple doesn't want to create a new UNIX system, instead an almost perfect desktop operating system is the goal. So if you want to see what is UNIX in Mac OS X: http://www.unix.org/unix03.html

It's made for the *desktop* and the UNIX per definition is for governmental agencies.

I happen to be a Unix fun and especially FreeBSD fun. But I think there should be a difference between a server OS and a desktop. Therefor I don't expect the freebsd developers to develop drivers for every single desktop crap. I'am happy if they focus on server stability and performance.
So, for my laptop it's either Linux, Mac or Windows. Linux has hundreds of distros with their own package management based on binaries. I don't like that sorry. Windows, well I don't need to use 4G of Ram and an expensive core2duo just to be able to boot. Besides Vista is crap os.
So, I choose a macbook. And I can do everything with my Mac, all my system and network administration. I even through an apache & mysql installation just to be able to do some local testing. I use macports which is very equivalent to the FreeBsd ports.

George

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...when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

>But I think there should be a difference between a server OS and a desktop.

An operating system should deliver a proper base, especially an UNIX operating system. Doing a desktop or doing a server is the thinking of the eighties, the time of the commercial unices, the time of the dinosaurs - well rest in peace, don't come back. So an os should deliver a proper base and a community surrounding it should deliver the foundation for the server or desktop flavour.

>But I think there should be a difference between a server OS and a desktop.

An operating system should deliver a proper base, especially an UNIX operating system. Doing a desktop or doing a server is the thinking of the eighties, the time of the commercial unices, the time of the dinosaurs - well rest in peace, don't come back. So an os should deliver a proper base and a community surrounding it should deliver the foundation for the server or desktop flavour.

When was the last time you had to set up a Linux server ?
Why on earth would a server need running bluetouth service (RHEN)?
Why a server should ever be configured using DHCP (Ubuntu) ?

As far as the dinosaurs are concerned, welcome to the 21st century where the horsepower of a modern server can seriously doubt the benefit of setting up different servers when you can use an ESX for that purpose.

Unix has grown but the needs of a server - desktop environment have become very far apart. Also, consider the security issues for a kernel that have to support all the device drivers of modern desktop peripherals. Even in a modular environment.

Best Regards,
George

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...when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

i am a mac user for about an year. IMHO opinion it worths
spending extra cash for it. the thing i like the most about os x is that i never turn off the system just putting it to "sleep" and it works like a charm. do that with a windows based laptop and see what happens (my boss did it and it crashed 3 times of 5).

the things i use it for are: system administration via iTerm (great terminal emulator ) and a desktop computer mostly, being the only "personal computer" i have it runs 14 to 18 hours a days and never had problems with it's stability and/or performance, although it gets warm after 4 hours or so but still stable.

i have never been much into X setup and almost always i have chose preconfigured OS's like: Ubuntu (which at some point just crashed, doesn't want to mount /proc) pc-bsd (which i use it at work on my desktop - i am very pleased with it).
mac is one of the things that "just work" from a desktop stand point.

my 2 cents

/v

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Stop! think! ... the problem is somewhere between the monitor and chair..."First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."Gandhilinks: spreadbsdsyk

I recently bought a MacBook Pro. To me, OS X is not different than any other Unix out there. My favorites are Debian, OS X, and FreeBSD. My desktop still runs Debian. I don't have a FreeBSD machine at the moment. Getting the MBP was one of the best decisions I ever made. It's such a great laptop, and the software makes it even better. However, I think I'm a weird Mac user as I installed all the command line programs I've used on my desktop on OS X. Most Mac users shy away from the command line. I don't.

When was the last time you had to set up a Linux server ?
Why on earth would a server need running bluetouth service (RHEN)?
Why a server should ever be configured using DHCP (Ubuntu) ?

As far as the dinosaurs are concerned, welcome to the 21st century where the horsepower of a modern server can seriously doubt the benefit of setting up different servers when you can use an ESX for that purpose.

Unix has grown but the needs of a server - desktop environment have become very far apart. Also, consider the security issues for a kernel that have to support all the device drivers of modern desktop peripherals. Even in a modular environment.

Best Regards,
George

>When was the last time you had to set up a Linux server ?

A month ago, Debian Etch. And my first UNIX was Irix in the nineties at university.

>Unix has grown but the needs of a server

UNIX has been developed in an academical environment with development purposes in mind. Later some guys decided to 'misuse' it as server, but it never lost it's workstation appeal! And what the heck is a desktop? This kindergarten flavour of Apple or maybe Fluxbox or Gnome or Windows? It's *your* desktop, your very own idea of an environment able to *serve* your purposes and the same is true for a server. So in the end an operating system has to deliver the proper base to *server* me.

>Also, consider the security issues for a kernel that have to support all the device drivers of modern desktop peripherals.

That's nonsense in opensource, because there is a developer who develops such a driver and later maintains it. So if you banish this driver, then this developer will choose a different operating system to work on. Last not least your saying is true for every device driver, if there isn't a developer who cares about it. Welcome to opensource and this is of course true for *BSD too.

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And to all Macmanicas: answer me one question please - did you buy the Mac for UNIX purposes or desktop use? So don't tell me something about Jobs marketing yada-yada-yada. You bought the Mac because this kind of desktop fits your idea of it. And the 'UNIX under the surface' is something to ease your 'opensource conscience' look boy, it's a UNIX(TM) too and it's even something like a FreeBSD (in fact it's something FreeBSD, BSD4.x, NextStep(based on BSD4.x), Mach, NetBSD, GNU and some commercial glue mixed up to represent something UNIX according to the definition of the OpenGroup).

I personally would get a Mac, because if I had to choose between Microsoft and Apple out of necessity for my OS, more of the software I use is likely to compile under OSX then on Windows NT without gnashing of teeth, short of using GNU or BSD instead :-P